Awakening to Dreams
by Fractured Peace
Summary: He came to awareness as though waking from a deep sleep. He was a mistake, a defect, a failure. Unique. He wants freedom, independence, and the power to reinforce them both. He will embark on the greatest tragic irony the world has ever known, and it will all begin with that one, first question, "Who am I?"
1. Chapter 1: The Soul

_**Awakening to Dreams:**_

**Chapter One: The Soul**

* * *

Air. It filled his lungs all at once and whistled in its tissues. A cold energy pricked at his nervous system. A small release of adrenaline. His eyes widened and captured a million images a second, transmitting them to his brain.

_Who am I?_

_Genomic Prototype Serial Number K6234. _

Air rushed from his diaphragm, into his trachea, and out through his mouth. His vocal cords vibrated with it and produced sound. The muscles in his knees fell lax and he forgot how to use them. He fell backwards with a few failed steps and landed on sedimentary stone. He lifted one of his hands in front of his eyes. Five small, jointed appendages fused at the knuckles. Clear, pale skin wrapped around muscle and bone. He moved each finger individually.

_What am I?_

_A Genome. Soulless vessels created by the High Master Garland to house the souls of Terra at the time of assimilation and wakening. Model S32. _

Light-born images moved in the unfocused edges of his peripheral vision. His eyes blinked and readjusted to allow them better focus. An air-filled hollow in stone. Other eyes connected focus with his. They were set in other faces. Placed on other bodies. They watched him. He shifted his weight to the right to allow his eyes access to other images. An empty space in the surrounding stone. Images grew indistinct from this direction. A light pierced his retinas and aligned to meet his optic nerve. His hand raised to block its progress.

_Where…?_

_Bran Bal, village of the soulless Genomes of the planet Terra. On the floor of the upper level of the Reproduction Laboratory. _

His facial tendons contracted. He shifted his weight until his body further faced the light. His knees remained where he had left them, and he bent them so they aligned with his palms on the floor. He moved his arm forward, but it did not synchronize with the rest of his body. Air pushed upwards through his mouth where it made a noise. His elbow collided with a stone tile in the floor. He deemed it unpleasant.

His muscles stiffened to still his movement. When his balance had stabilized, he tried again, and with an alternating movement of his arms and legs, was able to move approximately a foot forward. In this way, he made coordinated forward movement toward the opening in the stone.

_The archway. An opening used to allow access from one space to another._

He gripped it in his hands and used it for further stabilization. His legs pushed upwards until he could balance on the flats of his feet. The light was more intense here. His pupils contracted to restrict its access to his nervous system. Space extended in all directions. Directly before him, a path of paneled stone. Farther than that, water and a strip of land extending horizontal through air. Farther still, unclear structures and that light.

_Blue. A wave frequency on the longer half of the spectrum of visible color._

_What…?_

For that, his mind provided no answer. The question was too indistinct and aimless. His prior knowledge was not equipped to supply for such a question, and so, it remained silent. Adrenaline released into his blood and quickened the pace of his heart. His focus switched quickly now, and he questioned each object individually.

_Water. The molecular combination of one hydrogen particle with two oxygen particles. Liquid. Necessary for most forms of bio-organic life._

_The Blue Light of Gaia. Emitted from the planet's crystal. Such emissions will end after the time of assimilation._

_Buildings. Places of inhabitation and for the storage of material objects and machinery. The Storeroom. The Barracks. The Teleporter. _

Each new term brought with it a wave of new questions which brought new terms which brought new questions. He could not understand the answers.

_Who am I?_

_Genomic Prototype Serial Number K6234. _

_But what does that_ mean?

It went silent again. Such a question had never been asked of it before.

An irregular burst of carbon dioxide pushed nearly soundless from his lips. He stilled his movement, regained his balance, and started forward with an unsteady progression of his legs and feet.

He knew nothing.

* * *

Time passed, and yet, stood still. It was a phenomena that his mind helpfully explained every time it entered his thoughts but which he could not understand. His every breath, the pumping of his blood through living tissue, and his repeated movements denoted the passing of time, but his environment did not change. The others – for he recognized them now as others of living, breathing flesh – would occasionally move or speak to him in the same indecipherably knowledgeable voice as his mind, but they did not seem to really see him. No matter how he tried to gain their attention, they would continue to stare at something mundane and unmoving with the utmost resolve. He tried asking them questions, but if they answered, it was only with information that he could have told himself.

"Where are we?"

A shorter, stockier looking boy with golden hair (Model V22, his mind told him) turned its head from the blue light and blinked once, slowly, as though trying to clear the color from its eyes. "You are in Bran Bal, our village on the planet Terra," it answered.

"Yes, but why?" he asked. His eyebrows twitched together and his hand swatted at the air, as though hoping to grab something from it. He had, for the most part, grown used to the movements of his body, but he found some reactions to be unavoidable. He did not understand them.

The boy blinked again, but its eyes still reflected the light it had turned away from. "We were created here as vessels, awaiting the assimilation and the waking of lost souls. That is when we will become whole and achieve our purpose," it offered, but that was nothing new either.

He didn't bother to try again. These attempts at conversation always ended the same, and with each new attempt, he found a strange feeling of confliction left inside him, as though pulsing on his blood. He did not have a name for it, but grew to dislike it immensely. Still, there was another sensation which he found even worse as he sit on the bed that his mind told him was his, alone while the others were busy with their daily staring. He found it difficult to describe. It was some kind of a terrible ache like the kind he experienced when standing for too long, but different. It felt more focused in his head and in his chest, and while he could explain the workings of muscle fibers and their tensions, this had no explanation. At the times that it was strongest, he would often hide his eyes behind his knees and wrap around himself, though he did not know why that would help. He wondered if it was like cradling a wound and supporting the source of pain. He wondered if he was injured.

But the pain did not end when he left his bunk or when they came to join him for their synchronized sleeping patterns. It did not end when they would gather near the teleporter to check into the system scanner or in the basement laboratory for the shots of nutrition that would keep them alive for the following days. It was only be somewhat alleviated during those short, unhelpful conversations that so conflicted him, and even these he abandoned after a time. He took to the outskirts of Bran Bal where the others generally avoided and the carnivorous wildlife of Terra rarely approached. Here he would sit for undefined time lengths until his thoughts grew slow and his body called for sleep. It only took a few dozen sleep cycles to dispassion his search for answers and slip into a routine away from the others who could not understand him.

The man in black came during what he would later find to be his forty-third day of awareness.

His arrival was a routine, bimonthly affair for the purpose of examining his creations, checking the laboratory's systems, and disposing of those that were deemed weak, degrading, or outdated. When he first found the S32 series to skip from K6233 to K6235, he thought little of it, assuming that one of the silver dragons had simply swooped the missing integral away in its talons, as they occasionally did, but upon voicing his thoughts, one of the remaining Genomes blankly explained that K6234 did not often stay with them anymore. With further questioning, it was revealed that the Genome often stayed to himself, had taken to interrupting their mental stimulation, and would disappear for hours at a time for tasks they were unaware of. They directed him past their village's entrance, and he left their line-up to pursue this strange and unprecedented change in behavior. If a new wandering instinct or social disorder had developed he needed to find and isolate the cause before it could infect the others. It meant side-tracking his original schedule, but this new development was why he completed such scans in the first place. When it came to the potential derailment of his plans, no amount of caution could be considered excessive.

He found the defect resting on the steps outside the teleporter. In feature, he looked almost identical to the rest of his line – the wispy, silver hair, the same long, thin body. For this model, he had experimented with the fortitude and resiliency of the silver dragon, and this heritage showed in the lacking pigmentation to its skin and the small feathers littering its hair like down. On this particular specimen, an over-large flight feather had taken root just past his forehead and now drooped uselessly from its place in his scalp. The boy (who at over sixty-six inches tall did not appear to be a boy at all) sat with his arms clasped around his knees and his white-hued tail wrapped around his ankles. It was a very strange position to find a Genome.

He took a step forward, and the click of metal boots on stone steps alerted the defect to his presence. The boy looked up, and, though he could not remember seeing anyone like this man before, recognized him in an instant. _The High Master Garland. Lord and Overseer of the planet Terra. Master of souls. Protector of the dead. Creator of Genomes._ Comprehension flashed bright in the boy's eyes, and Garland faltered at the sight of it. It was unnatural to see such awareness. He sensed a power there that he could not identify. It unnerved him.

But it would not remain unidentified for long. It might take months of DNA scans, systems studies, and observation, but he was fully prepared to find the root of this anomaly. While they were not yet in Pandemonium, Garland decided to start with a test of basic verbal communication. "What are you doing here?"

The boy did not respond immediately. He broke eye contact, tilted his head downwards, and answered, "I don't know."

Social degradation, limited mental capacities, and confusion. Not promising symptoms should this affliction appear in the others.

But the boy did not silence after responding to external stimulus. He did something unprecedented, and indeed, undocumented in all of Garland's records.

He asked another question.

"Who am I?"

Despite the simplicity of the question, Garland found difficulty answering. He was too thrown by the paradox sitting before him, waiting with something akin to expectation. Perhaps a separation from the main knowledge base of Terra had caused the Genome to compensate using external means?

"…You are K6234 of the S32 model of experimental Genome."

The boy's eyebrows came together in an expression akin to frustration. "No," the boy corrected, "That is not what I meant. I mean…" The boy looked at him, and suddenly, Garland realized what had so unsettled him. This Genome, this defection from normalcy, was not simply responding to stimuli, but _watching_ him. He silently reprimanded himself for such an illogical notion, but even his better rationality could deny nothing when the boy next spoke.

"I mean who am I? What does it all mean?"

_No. No, this could not be…_

No simple malfunction could have spawned a question such as that. No Genome, regardless of build, could have ever conceived of it. Garland's mind searched desperately for some other explanation, some hypothesis that would lessen the horrifying sensation of failure from his systems, but no matter how he presented the situation, nothing else could have prompted such self-awareness. This boy had somehow stolen a soul.

_That is not possible._

He had scanned the Soul Shelters only hours previously, and nothing had been missing. There had been no malfunctions, no leaks, nothing that might explain how one had been pulled into the cycle or, even more amazingly, accepted by this vessel. Yet there were no other options. He had built the genomes to accept only complex human souls spawned from the crystal of Terra. No other energy could have survived there.

_Unless…_

_'In the Ancient Times, when the crystal shone strong with life, Terra rejuvenated itself with the Cycle of Souls, growing ever more complex and powerful with each passing cycle. Thus, could the very energy of the planet give way to new souls, each more perfect than the last, so that the most insignificant of parasite could take botanical root and then become one of fur or feather or scale. In its strongest form, the planet birthed one of higher sentience to understand the ways of life, and in this highest phase brought the fruition of civilization.'_

His mind presented another possibility to mind, directly from the legends of the Old Civilization. Had Terra not already followed the path proclaimed by these Ancient words? In recent millennia, Garland had seen the barren lands begin to take life – first in the form of the microscopic, then in plants and fungi, and most recently in animal life. Perhaps this soul had not escaped from his charge, but had evolved from the depths of a rejuvenated crystal. Such a claim would require far more research, study, and perhaps dissection of the offending soul, but if the claim could be supported…

It would mean that the time of Assimilation drew near.

He needed answers, but this boy was no longer merely a vessel. His life was just as meaningless, just as disposable, but Garland's usual methods would no doubt prompt some objection from a sentient being and resistance would skew the results of his study. He decided to take a more tactful approach.

"Do you have a name?"

The boy frowned as the unfamiliar word took shape in his head. _Name. A title used for identification and the emphasis of individual conscious._ He shook his head.

"Then I will give you one." Garland took a few steps away and studied Gaia's omnipresent light. After a moment's consideration of Terra's audio histories, he decided on one whose rough translation he deemed appropriate. _The First. The Eldest. The Origin._

"Kuja."


	2. Chapter 2: Pain

_**Awakening to Dreams:**_

**Chapter Two: Pain**

* * *

_Darkness_. That was the only thought his mind could define upon reaching the lower levels of Pandemonium. _The absence of light. Cause for visual impairment. _He wondered if that was why he could identify nothing – because he was visually impaired. Darkness colored the walls and floor and strange-sounding machines black so that they all blended together and he couldn't tell the difference between them. They came down a hall and to another teleporter and down another hall and he could not recognize any of the strange, spiral patterns or the hard material that clicked beneath his feet. More than once, he almost lost Garland in the darkness. He listened for the sound of scraping metal and heavy footfalls and tried to discern black from black. He could only see the strange, glowing orb at the center of his chest for certain. Its light permeated the darkness and lit passing shapes in half-illuminated shadow. He felt something familiar about that light and its color. _Red._ He had seen it once on his skin when he was still growing used to the movements of his body. He'd fallen and his arm had hurt and the skin had broken and it had been red.

_Blood. The body's means of transport for nutrients, oxygen, sugars, and hormones. Liquid. Necessary for most animal life._

He saw his blood again that day. Garland said he needed it to understand something. He sat him down on a chair made of a cold, hard metal and called him that word again – Kuja. It sounded strange to him, this word that his mind did not identify, but Garland used it to speak with him, and he felt better. He nodded through Garland's explanations and did as he said, though he did not like the thick tubing and the sharp prick of needles and the sporadic beep of monitors as they ran electrical impulses down a thick string of wires. But he listened when Garland said that word. When he left, he said it slowly to himself, measuring the syllables on his tongue. "Kuja." He did not know what it meant, but he liked how it had sounded when spoken to him. A name. His own word. An answer.

Kuja learned many more words and received many more answers from his time with Garland. _Pain_, for instance. He had known the functioning behind it, the purpose of instinctive self-preservation, and the workings of the nervous system as it sensed external stimuli and responded to potential danger with a negative response, but he had not recognized it as clearly as he did now. _Loneliness_. He had asked Garland about the ache he felt while alone with the other Genomes in Bran Bal, and he had called it loneliness. This word brought him back despite the pain. At least Garland would speak to him and call him by name…

The rest became manageable and routine. Garland said that he wanted to study the construction of his body and the separate components of his soul. That meant that, after Kuja had arrived and they went through the long, black hallways, he would be taken to one of two rooms. He faced one with considerable more fear than the other.

If he was lucky, Garland would choose the left-hand wing of his laboratory where he carried out his genetic and biological research. Kuja's room was near the back. First they passed the blue-green glow of the stasis tanks and the over-cast white lights of the native specimens kept behind the invisible barrier Garland called glass. Sometimes he would see Genomes inside the tanks, suspended there with their eyes closed and their bodies limp and motionless. Needles pressed deep under their skin and connected to tubes strung up to mysterious machines which hummed and glowed and processed information. Sometimes he would see things that should not have been alive at all. Shriveled, wet things with appendages that might have been arms or legs. Beating, misshapen hearts and unmoving lungs. He saw a creature once covered in damp feathers with a lengthened snout distorting its face and a tail floating out behind it. It had been silver.

Kuja's room was far less interesting. It held only a metal platform surrounded by bright, fluorescent lights and a desk with sterilized needles and bottles of sick smelling liquids. Cabinets in the opposite wall hid a collection of knives, bandages, and different handheld machines which he could not identify. They meant something to Garland though and he used each of them during their time in that room. Kuja did not remember much of what they were used for. He could rarely focus while the tubes in his arm mixed sedatives and anesthetics into his blood. When he gained consciousness, they would be gone, and he would remember nothing. He'd sometimes ask Garland what it had all been for while he was forced to swallow the bitter liquid called potions and wait for the chemicals to leave his system, but Garland did not often answer, and when he did, Kuja found that it meant little. He would more usually show his interest in matters of real importance: emotions, expressions, and the workings of the world. He asked if the Genomes ever thought anything, why he felt pain even when his body was not in danger, and what to call the noise he sometimes made when he was scared. Garland answered his questions with an air of impatience and sent him away the moment he was able to walk. Kuja was told to rest for the days following these kinds of procedures, and he would sleep off the sedatives and the healing wounds. Despite everything, he found that he did not mind these days when Garland would render him unconscious and examine his systems. The conversation made these among the most pleasant times for Kuja, the only guaranteeing another's interest. He would often dread his return to Bran Bal. The new pain only added to his irritation with the Genomes.

If he was unlucky, Garland would lead him to the right-hand wing of his laboratory: the soul depository. The scenery here was far less recognizable and far more mechanical. Walls made of computers. Doors sealed by electronic codes. He passed many rooms with strange machines that held long, metal arms or closing glass doors or tubes full of moving, semi-solid smoke that pushed back and forth at the ends of their canisters. All of these had chairs, platforms, and openings made for something the size of a Genome. Kuja stayed close to Garland in these places, though the darkness gave him the illogical urge to leave him for these halls he would not be able to navigate. He never knew that they had reached their destination until he saw that machine – his machine. The Soul Scanner.

As Garland explained, Kuja's soul was a mistake. Something had gone wrong, and he needed to know where it had come from and why it had taken him as its vessel. The Scanner would help that. While Kuja's soul was still in his body, most tests would remain impossible to carry out, but removing his soul would threaten the integrity of Garland's research. The only plausible answer was to partially remove his soul – not enough for it to loose itself from his body, but just enough so that it could be examined one small piece at a time. It would take many, many sessions to complete, but there was no other way. It would have to be done.

Garland had not mentioned that doing so required going inside the hollow of the machine itself and that it would cause him so much pain.

With the press of a button, Garland would pull out the platform in the center, place Kuja upon it, and then push it back in again. There was no light inside. Nothing but complete, unchanging black. It surrounded him, and he couldn't tell how far it went without testing the air with his arms which were bound. He could feel nothing but slick metal beneath his fingers and the cold oxygen pumped in to prevent asphyxiation. He heard it loud in the walls of the machine. Metal grinding in unidentified gears. The static of electricity. The hum of moving components. The pain came when the humming grew loudest. But it wasn't pain, really. His body felt nothing but muscle tension and his own movements of protest. It was a deeper intrusion than that. A pull on something that refused to be moved. It made him light-headed and caused him to forget.

_Who am I?_

He didn't know. He thought more desperately around the hollow cavities of his mind.

_Who am I?_

_A vessel. Genomic Prototype…_

He didn't remember his name until the humming stopped and the platform slid back into the barely lit shadows that overwhelmed his eyes. Kuja. Garland would say his name as though reminding him. Kuja. He did not receive a resting period like he did in the left wing. He would be sent back to Bran Bal once he could repeat that one word. These were the only times he felt any relief to return. When he wanted to sleep and think and remember...

He nearly screamed when he first saw it there too.

It had been a particularly bad day at the Scanner and he had laid on his bed and waited to fall unconscious. The other Genomes would do so immediately upon reaching their scheduled cycles, but Kuja never could. He'd wait there and listen to their synchronized breathing as it surrounded him, dozens of them together in respiratory rhythm, or he'd ignore their schedule and leave that place to wander Bran Bal and feel the weight of the silent air. It only worsened the quiet ache of loneliness, but Kuja preferred isolation over the company of Genomes and movement over conscious inactivity. Today, however, he wanted to sleep. He watched as the light flickered in tiny movements along the wall and cast the nearest Genome in blue. His eyes closed.

When he opened them, the light had disappeared. He stared into the darkness and then blinked. Nothing changed. His breath quickened and he felt his skin go cold. He tried to sit up, but couldn't. He was held down. He told himself not to panic – that losing his rationality was illogical – but his hands slipped on metal and he could see nothing and he could not move.

And then he heard the hum.

He let out a noise of the kind he had never let Garland hear and pulled at his bindings. The hum grew louder and he could not escape and he could not move. Just as he heard it reach its loudest climax, he screamed and jerked so violently that he broke the straps and went careening over the metal's edge. He was falling, falling into darkness and then…

The stone hurt when he hit it. It collided first with his elbows then his knees and then knocked into his jaw and Kuja didn't know what caused it. He gasped and pushed himself up with his palms until he could look in every direction, staring. Blue light. Beds. Genomes. They had all woken and they stared back at him without raising their heads. He looked between them and tried to understand. His chin was burning and felt wet when he touched it. _Blood._

"What happened?"

The Genome in the bed beside him (a V22 make) blinked slowly and responded to external prompting. "Our sleep patterns have been interrupted," it answered, "Please wait until the time of proper stimulation." Then it closed its eyes and instantly lost consciousness. Kuja looked to the others and saw that they were returning to their sleep patterns as well. He was left alone.

He stayed on the floor for a long time, waiting for the darkness to come and the machine to overtake him again. He waited while his heart rate slowed and his breaths deepened and his body loosened from and he slumped against his bedframe. He wanted to believe that it had been nothing. He knew that matter could not move so quickly from one spacial occupation to another without the use of teleportation, and there was no teleporter in his bed. He wanted to believe that it was impossible, but he knew what he'd seen, and he couldn't. The thought occurred to him that he would need sleep, but he was no longer tired and some part of him – his less rational half – did not want to be caught on his back when the lights disappeared again. He spent the rest of the night in Bran Bal, wandering from one building to another and then curling on the stairs of the entrance and resting his wounded chin against his knee. He stayed awake as often as possible for the next two days while he waited for the call that would bring him answers.

When he next came to Pandemonium, he did not wait until the appropriate time to ask his questions. He found Garland in the entry hall, looked up the few inches' difference between their heights, and said, "I need to ask you something," before he could think better of it. Garland's eyebrow raised but he otherwise said nothing against him.

"What is it?"

Kuja explained what had happened. He told of how the room had suddenly gone dark and how he had not been able to move and how he had heard the hum and how he had fallen and landed on the floor. He did not mention the noises he had made or his initial struggling. Even the mention of Kuja's fear in that machine brought a hardened look from Garland and a hot, shameful feeling from Kuja. He looked away, but Garland's eyes never wavered.

"You experienced a _dream_," Garland said, but that meant nothing to Kuja and he told him so.

"Dreaming occurs during times of high brain-wave activity while unconscious. It is for the purpose of mental preservation and often manifests in personal projection into an unreal setting," Garland and the voice in his head said together. Kuja tried to understand it, but could not completely grasp the details. He had been unconscious. The event had been unreal.

But it had _felt_ real. Kuja's stomach tightened.

"Could it happen again?"

"Dreaming occurs multiple times during the sleep cycle. It's a subconscious reaction that is often forgotten by the conscious mind."

Kuja considered that, and then, with a slow feeling of dread, asked, "So it will?"

But Garland had lost interest in their conversation and left so quickly that his cape twirled out behind him on displaced air. He began to walk away, back down the halls and through the teleporters and to one of the two doors that would determine the course of the day. Kuja lowered his eyes and followed close enough to see the red light's glow. Garland's silence was answer enough.

Kuja did not sleep well after that. Every time he came close, he would hear that answer and remember the darkness and open his eyes. No amount of sleep was worth that pain.


	3. Chapter 3: The Self

_**Awakening to Dreams:**_

**Chapter Three: The Self**

* * *

Time passed slowly in those first few months. Days melded into days, hours into hours – all of it predictable. After a session in Pandemonium, Kuja would be allowed a few days' silent rest in Bran Bal before he would be called back to Pandemonium again. The call came as clearly as though he'd had a speaker implanted directly into his ear. "Come here, Kuja." It usually said no more than that, and it didn't need to. Having not heard another voice directed towards him in days, that call came as a relief. Kuja did not need to know _why_ Garland could speak into his mind (the given answer confused him) only that it would get him away and provide something even remotely interesting. Anything to break the silence.

Kuja spent most of his time in Bran Bal in two or three day long intervals. He would walk aimlessly down his favorite routes or sit on the steps and think, surrounded by Genomes and blue light and silence. The air was thick with it. It moved like a haze on the air, like a blue fog.

The Genomes only made it worse. On those days when his body hurt too much to move far from his bed, he would have no choice but to stay with them, and their silence unnerved him. Once when he tripped and reopened a cut on his arm, he found one standing in the doorway to the storeroom, blocking his path. His arm hurt and his body ached and blood dripped down his fingers and he became so irritated that he grabbed the Genome by the shoulders and pushed it out of the way, so forceful that it fell over sideways onto the ground. Kuja didn't feel bad about it as he rummaged through the supplies and found his collection of stolen potions behind a stack of extra uniforms. When he saw its hands stitched with blood and its eyes blinking up at him without even noticing, Kuja wished he'd pushed it harder.

It was on one of these days after physical testing that he grew bored of his room and headed outside, cautious to go too far in case he needed another potion. As a compromise, he settled in the middle of the path by the water's edge, though the voice in his head told him that Genomes should stay away from the water. It was dangerous, it said, but he didn't see why. He sat with his legs folded to one side and his good arm holding up the weight of his body. His bad arm – the one that had hosted needles and tubes two days before – rested gingerly on his lap, careful not to move or stretch the skin. He looked off and watched the Genomes and his body ached and they stood there and his arm burned and he wished they would disappear. That they would stand there so unaware and uncaring of his pain…It irritated him.

That they should be left unharmed while he – a thinking, feeling person – should suffer irritated him even more.

He looked away towards the water, but even here, he found one waiting for him. He recognized it immediately as an S32, and the sight of it would have made him cringe if he hadn't felt so tired. The paler skin, the short-cut silver hair and feathers, the thin, pointed face and the eyes like the light of Gaia. This one even wore the same clothes as him, though that was not unusual. There were only three standard uniforms for ones of their build, and the blue-striped skirts and half-shirts were fairly common around Bran Bal. He noticed a longer feather falling from the top of its head, and that sight brought him the most irritation of all. He had never seen it on another of his make before, and that further similarity brought him yet another unpleasant confliction which he could not identify. Kuja gave a short scowl and looked away.

The Genome did too.

Kuja looked back, but the image had changed. The Genome's eyes were rounder now and its eyebrows had curved higher on its forehead. If he had not known better, Kuja would have said it looked surprised. Garland had told him that none of the Genomes were capable of expression – that he was the only one – but this one looked surprised_._ Even as Kuja watched, its face moved again. It leaned closer, and the focus in those eyes could have rivaled even Garland's. Kuja found it difficult to breathe.

"Are you…?"

He didn't know what to say. He had never been faced with someone so interested in him before. He did not know what was expected of him. As he tried to think of something, it leaned away, looking confused. He saw its tight lips and the panic in its eyes, and wondered if he'd done something wrong. "I didn't mean…" He reached out, and the Genome finally seemed to understand. It frowned and raised its arm as though to meet him halfway.

The Genome shattered into pieces. His hand splashed in water.

_What…?_

_Reflection. The infraction of visible light angled so as to duplicate and refocus an image. Caused by still water and appropriate flat surfaces._

_But where did it go?_

_The angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence so that should light contact a reflective surface the image will only preserve if the angles of incidence remain constant._

This meant nothing to him. He could only stare at the broken pieces of the Genome while his mind offered more definitions and mathematical equations. He ignored them.

He tried to touch it again, but he couldn't find anything under the water. The water – once blue like the light of Gaia – was clear on his hands. He stared at them and couldn't understand. He wondered where the Genome had gone. He wondered if he'd hurt it.

The thought scared him and he left before he could think about it anymore. He returned to his bed and laid there, surrounded by Genomes and blue and silence and he couldn't stop worrying. It had been there for less than a minute, but he'd known what he'd seen. _Expression._ It had looked uncertain and scared, just like he had, and he wanted to talk to it. But it was gone now. Gone forever, maybe. He wanted to scream in frustration, but instead, he rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his face into his pillow so the light went away. He didn't like the dark – it reminded him of dreams – but the instant quickening of his heart brought his mind away from what he'd seen. He stayed like this until he couldn't stand it anymore, and then looked up at the ceiling, deciding that he was really too hurt to go anywhere for the rest of the day.

* * *

For once, Kuja didn't want to move the next day. He was afraid of what he'd find outside, but he had no excuse. He left reluctantly and, because he couldn't help it, glanced into the water.

It had come back and looked at him too. Such a relief flooded him that Kuja fell to his knees and knelt closer so he could see it better. It was there, just the same as before, with so much _expression_ and _focus _on its face that he couldn't help but stare. He watched as their eyes met, and then, as its lips turned up in a way he hadn't seen before. _A smile. An expression of happiness. _He didn't know what to make of it. It certainly was strange to see such a thing on a Genome's face, but he decided that he liked it. He smiled too.

Kuja spent the rest of the day by the water. First, he sat leaning on his right arm and then on his stomach with his chin on his palm. He stayed with the Genome for a long time, talking, though it never spoke back. He didn't mind. Wherever it was, it looked like it couldn't get out. It reminded him of the glass walls he'd seen in Pandemonium; though he could see the carnivorous predators behind those walls, he couldn't hear them and they couldn't reach him. He talked anyway, even if it couldn't hear, but he felt that it did. The way it moved and nodded its head, it seemed to understand. He stayed after the Genomes went inside to sleep, and then he came back out the next morning. The other Genome was waiting there for him that day too.

Kuja didn't want to hear Garland's call when it came. He didn't want what would come in Pandemonium and he didn't want to leave the water. But the call came anyway, and he grimaced when he heard it. "I have to go," he said told the other Genome, but it looked so sad and alone that he couldn't bring himself to move. Kuja glanced up the path that would take him to the teleporter and then at the Genome again. After a moment, he shifted into a more comfortable position and sighed.

"But I guess I don't need to now," he said, and it looked happier. He smiled.

Garland called several more times after that first, but Kuja never came. With every passing minute, Garland's impatience grew until he could not stop himself from cursing his defectional creation. No other Genome would have ever ignored his orders. They would not have been able to. This unprecedented situation irritated him, and he questioned the value of his creation's life. If Kuja would not listen to his commands then perhaps he was not worth the time…

But these were only theoretical thoughts spawned from irritation. He had already learned far more than expected, and would not abandon such studies until he deemed them finished. No, if he had to, he would drag the boy back into line himself.

It did not take long to find him. It was difficult to tell any of the Genomes apart while they mingled so aimlessly within the walls of Bran Bal, but Kuja caught his eye immediately. Garland found the boy flat on his stomach with his arms folded over each other, pillowing his chin, while his tail swished back and forth behind him. Garland watched him for a moment, but did not catch the boy's attention. He took a step forward.

"Kuja."

The boy made the distasteful expression he often wore after swallowing a potion. "I wish he'd stop calling me," he said to seemingly no one. Garland's eyes narrowed.

"_Kuja!"_

Kuja froze and slowly turned his head. When he saw his creator standing there, he made a short sound and jolted into a more defensible position. His tail beat back and forth apprehensively, but he said nothing and wouldn't raise his head.

Garland watched him for a long time. "What were you doing?" he asked. Kuja crawled over to the water and sat at his creator's feet.

"Talking to the other Genome."

Garland glanced at him, confused. Kuja had never shown an interest in the other vessels before, and beyond that, the boy had been alone. Kuja peered over the edge of the water and Garland considered his behavior leaned over as well. Black armor, an energy core which held a soul in an artificial body, and a weathered face. Just as the last inhabitants of Terra had created him. Garland scowled and stepped away.

"That is only your reflection," Garland corrected, but the word seemed to mean nothing to the boy, despite his memory programming. "It is only an image," he redefined impatiently, "Nothing is there," but even _this _did nothing to curve the boy's interest. Garland questioned the depths of the boy's stupidity. "You are looking at _yourself." _

Finally some dawning of comprehension lit the boy's eyes and he repeated, "Myself?" Garland nodded.

"Reflections occur when light is redirected off of a surface at a new angle. What you see when you look in the water is what others see when they look at you."

But with that new definition, the moment's previous intelligence faded from the boy's eyes and he looked back into the water. "My…self?"

Garland fought back the tension rising between his eyebrows and turned on his heel before he could act out in a way he would regret. "Follow me, Kuja," he demanded. He took a few steps forward, but heard nothing behind him. A glance over his shoulder proved the boy to still be sitting there, staring at nothing. Garland reminded himself to run further scans on his brain function.

"_Kuja!"_

When they returned to Pandemonium, Garland remained silent with the boy and forbade his usual questions. He performed his tests particularly painfully and, when the boy looked at him, returned it with a look that made it plainly clear why. Kuja had to drink three potions before he could return to Bran Bal and did so silently. The boy answered his next call within minutes and without complaint. To Garland's relief, further sessions proved to be quiet ones, and he was allowed his work in peace.

* * *

_Himself_. It was such a strange concept, and one that Kuja had never before considered properly. In all of the time that he had asked the question, he had not thought that it would have such a simple answer. "Who am I?" He'd seen himself. He could point to it. He could look at it whenever he wanted. This was how _he_ looked. This was _him._

He spent as long as he could at the water, hours every day. He rarely looked at the others anymore and dreaded Garland's calls. He didn't need anyone else, now that he had found himself. His reflection never spoke back, but it was enough just to _look_.

He loved the soft, feathery feel of his hair and the way it shone so brightly under the light of Gaia. He loved the thin arc of his eyebrows and the smooth tilt of his mouth, but only when they were in motion. He loved his eyes the most, the way they would open wider than they should or close just a little and how even their smallest change could make him look so different. Squint them a little – that was focus. Narrow them and that was anger, like Garland's. The quiet kind. The kind that sat and thought about things and was much scarier than yelling. Widen them and that was surprise. He didn't have to feel these emotions, but he could show it, and that amazed him. That he could hide his emotions. That he could fake them. He didn't know why he'd want to, but it was a novel thought. It had never occurred to him to lie before…

He tried to use this knowledge with Garland now, not because he wanted to lie, but because he wanted to control them, now that he knew he could. Garland would often raise his eyebrow or give him that angry, close-eyed look or tell him to stop it, but he didn't. Kuja loved expression and he loved the way it looked and he didn't want to lose that. More than anything, he didn't want to look…_empty._

"I'm not like them," he told himself. It was the first time he'd said it out-loud, though of course, no one else had heard it. It was just him and his reflection and he watched it with his chin on his hands and his stomach flat to the ground. "I'm not like those guys…" He glanced to one of the Genomes outside the storeroom though of course _it_ wouldn't tell. Still, he didn't know what Garland would say if he heard him talking like that. After a moment, Kuja decided that he didn't care.

"I'm different!" he reasserted, and his eyes closed just a little bit and his lip pursed and he nodded. Determination. The feather on his head tilted a little with his movement, and he smiled at it. He loved that feather. His hair, mouth, and even eyes sometimes looked like the others, but that feather…He could never be mistaken for them with that feather.

"Why are they like that?" he wondered aloud, and then added "I know, I know. Because they're soulless vessels, not meant for expression and feeling. I know that!" before the voice could. He folded his lower arms flat on the ground and then set his head on top of them, still watching his reflection. It looked tired and maybe a little sad. He blew a few strands of hair out of his face and shifted his head into a better position. "I mean…" he started, "If they don't feel anything, then why are they even…walking? Alive, I mean. Why are they alive? I wouldn't want to be like that…"

Then the worst realization, the one that made him feel sick every time he thought it, and the one he tried to forget. His eyebrows furrowed and his tail lashed uneasily.

"I was like that, wasn't I?" He looked deep into his troubled, blue eyes, but they told him nothing. Of course, he didn't need them to, but he wished they had told him something different from what he knew. He'd once been soulless. He'd woken up at the right time and wandered around and lost consciousness with the others and felt nothing. His face had been expressionless and blank and he hadn't appreciated his feather.

He'd seen a dragon attack Bran Bal once. None of the Genomes seemed to think that anything was wrong. They didn't even move. He saw one get its stomach ripped open with sharp claws and the dragon had left it there because it had been distracted by another which it smashed in its teeth and flew away with. The first Genome had stopped moving on the path and it was covered in blood and its stomach was torn and open and thick. Garland had come and ordered the other Genomes to clean it up and they had. They didn't even hesitate, just picked it up and tossed it over the cliff and started cleaning the path. Kuja had asked what had happened and Garland had told him it had died. _Death. The end of life. An abrupt and irreversible failure of bodily function._

The Genomes always looked like that. Dead. They looked dead.

Kuja stopped thinking about it. He lifted his finger and traced his reflection through the air, careful not to touch the water. He did wish he could touch it though. He thought it might feel nice to touch it.

"I think I'll stay here tonight," he said, and he did. He slept beside the water, laying there on his stomach so he could look at it if he had the dream again and he could know that it hadn't been real and that he was safe. He only slept in his bed anymore when it was too painful to sleep on the ground. He liked the isolation and his voice and his reflection. He didn't like being so close to the others. He could hear them breathing and it reminded him that they were alive. He wished that they weren't.

He thought about many things by the water. He thought about the tests and what his life would be like without them. He thought about the Genomes and how he wasn't like them but he wished they'd stop looking like him so he could be sure. He thought about Garland and decided that he didn't like seeing him anymore and wished he'd stop calling. But that would leave him alone. Without Garland or the Genomes and his purpose, he would be alone without anywhere to go and no reason to leave the water. It would just be him and his reflection and his voice and they'd talk forever…

He wished it could be real.


	4. Chapter 4: Betrayal

_**Awakening to Dreams**_

**Chapter Four: Betrayal**

* * *

"Why am I different from the others?"

This was a question that was asked often and was the first to emerge upon meeting the boy. Garland glanced uneasily from his notes and the results of his first scans, still unused to questioning from a Genome. Kuja watched him, his eyes dulled by sedatives but his expectation clear. Garland wondered if his memory would even remain intact upon regaining full consciousness.

"As far as I am aware, you are no different from the others in any respect but your soul, however, that is the question at the base of my research."

For all of the changes to the boy, Garland's answer remained constant over time. First, Kuja responded only by asking about the ways of souls, then he would bite his tongue with a troubled eye, and eventually he grew angry at such an answer. Finally, in their last days, Kuja spoke against it. "I'm not like those guys!" he proclaimed indignantly. Unfortunately, at this point in Garland's research, the evidence contradicted such a statement.

"Your nervous system, internal structure, mental capacities, magical limits, cardiovascular system, and genetic coding show no differences," he responded, "I have found nothing to support your claim to individuality."

"What about my soul?" Kuja questioned almost smugly, but for the first time, Garland refuted this idea.

"I believe your soul to be an act of chance. There is nothing to distinguish you from the others of your make, and it just as easily could have inhabited any of them."

Kuja fell silent. He looked away, subdued, but questioned his authority no farther. In a rare moment of peace, Garland was allowed his work without the distractions that had become so prolific as of late.

He remembered the quirk appearing shortly after Kuja began his obsession with the personal symbolic image. In the first instance of this abnormality, Garland found the boy in Pandemonium's entrance hall with his eyes narrowed and his mouth tight. Garland raised an eyebrow and observed him coolly.

"Are you angry?" he asked, but at that assertion, Kuja's eyes instantly brightened and he smiled in a way that was strangely delighted.

"Yes," he answered cheerfully. A tension rose between Garland's eyebrows and he turned before he could respond in a regretful manner. He said nothing the next time he noticed Kuja staring at him with his eyes too wide or too narrow or his mouth twisted in an indeterminate manner, but it seemed the boy would not cease his games until he had garnered attention. After fourteen minutes of this nonsense, Garland glanced up from his notes and gave him a cold look.

"Stop that," he demanded, but the boy's expression did not waver.

"Stop what?"

"Your facial…twitching. You are purposely creating a distraction."

"No, I'm not," Kuja answered and his eyes focused with a bright edge and a millimeter's turn of his lips. Defiance. Garland sent a telepathic connection into Kuja's mind and restrained his soul until Kuja gave a groan of defeat and ceased his childish games. The end of their contact could not come quickly enough.

It took nineteen months to complete his studies. With the boy's body completely useless, only his soul remained of any interest. Forged in the crystal from the combined energy of Terra and Gaia, his soul had proven truly unique, a new breed that would likely precede many more of its kind. Its study became a matter of utmost importance, and required unhindered experimentation and dissection, free of its obscuring body.

He scheduled the termination date for five days' time.

* * *

At first, Kuja noticed nothing out of the ordinary. He had heard Garland's call as usual and, as usual, had spent several minutes complaining about it to himself and his appropriately annoyed reflection. When he came to the darkened, strangely-defined halls of Pandemonium, Garland stood waiting for him, nearly enshrouded in thick, blackened shadow except for his red-lit energy core. Garland said nothing but gave him the usual, wordless nod of greeting and turned in such a way that his cape twirled out behind him like a dragon's frill. As they travelled the usual hallways and came to the usual doors (they took the right, much to Kuja's displeasure) nothing seemed at all out of the ordinary and Garland said nothing to imply differently.

He did not notice anything until Garland diverted from their usual path halfway to their destination. Kuja stopped and blinked the blind confusion from his eyes. If they had wanted to reach the Scanner, they would have needed to continue straight until the third fork then turn right then left again then straight until the fifth door. Kuja glanced down these halls and then back at Garland.

"Aren't we going this way?" he asked uncertainly.

Garland answered a quick "No" without so much as pausing in his step, and Kuja sent one, last, despairing look in their usual direction before scuttling to catch his creator. As they travelled further through these unfamiliar halls, Kuja shrunk closer to Garland. The darkness felt oppressive – hostile. He didn't know what was behind any of those doors or where they were heading, and it unnerved him. Garland glanced to him in surprise at his sudden dependence, but quickly looked ahead again. As if by unspoken agreement, the two said nothing, and Kuja could only listen to their pair of footsteps clicking in rhythm along Pandemonium's hard-shelled floors. Obstinate metal and padded cloth.

Then came the hum.

Kuja stopped. At the end of the hall, he could see an open door, and spilling it from it like liquid diffusion in the shadows, a blue-green light. Kuja stared, his breath quickening at the sound, though this was nothing unusual. He did not know why he should be afraid or what any of it meant, only that hum and the preparation of that door and the unsettling familiarity of that light. Fear struck cold in his blood, but he tried to ignore it. During his time in Pandemonium, he had learned how to overcome his anxieties without showing them too strongly.

"Kuja."

Garland gave him a strange expression, not his usual irritation, but something Kuja, even after all of his time by the water, couldn't identify. His eyes looked different; there was no anger in them. Irrationally, Kuja found that he wanted that anger back. He didn't like this new look and he didn't like this new place and he wanted to go back to Bran Bal.

But Garland kept watching him, and he knew he didn't have a choice. He stepped through the door and this new room made him feel no better. Set into the opposite wall was a machine that reminded him of the Scanner with its full-wall interface and the hole set into the side, just big enough for a Genome to enter. The machine already had power and its monitors shone white with little red and green buttons and lines of code he couldn't understand. It hummed – ready, waiting – and Kuja's heart fluttered to the frequency of that sound. There was another door on an adjacent wall, but it was locked with metal and electricity and the hand-sized key pad at its side. A window let in a hazy stream of that blue-green light, and Kuja tried to ignore it. It felt wet and silent and cold. It swept over his thoughts like a dream and made it hard to think.

"What's this?"

His mind offered a word for the machine, one that sounded ominous but that he didn't understand, and a definition that his mind refused to. Garland turned, his eyes perfectly impassive, focused, and emotionless.

"Your usefulness in my research has come to an end. In order to further my studies, I need to dissect your soul and divide it in to its component parts. It must be done."

Kuja heard the words, but he couldn't understand them. He knew their meanings – he'd used them all and could easily define them – but they made no sense when organized in that way. It couldn't mean what he'd thought it had meant, but then, why was his heart beating so incredibly fast and why did he feel that he wanted to run?

_What is this?_

_Betrayal._ He'd never heard that word before, but it sounded right. _An act of disloyalty. A violation of trust. _

"You have served me well." Garland's voice came as though from far away. Irrelevant. Unreal. A compliment? That somehow broke through Kuja's mind and it reeled at such a thing. Why was Garland…?

_The body becomes a vessel, which greets a new soul…_

Pain came with those words, spoken so traitorously in his head. Pain unlike anything he had felt in all of his tests. His soul was being _pulled_ and he couldn't stop it. It became so real that it hurt in every inch of his body and he saw the darkness and he felt the floor on his knees and his mind was buzzing and his thoughts blurred and his head felt heavy and he didn't know what was making those noises like pain but he wanted it to stop until he couldn't want anything anymore and then…

_Who am I?_

_Genomic Prototype Serial Number K6234_

_Who am I?_

_A vessel, awaiting a soul_

_Who…?_

He fell and there was nothing.

* * *

Garland had thought little of his plans beyond their stated goals. He did not hesitate at the thought of ending his sessions with Kuja, but when the time had come and he led the boy to his unknowing end, his stagnant soul stirred within its energy core. He did not quite know this feeling – a strange occurrence after nearly five thousand years of proper functioning – but it afflicted him with a kind of doubtful _sinking_ he could not identify. He quickly isolated that rogue emotion and allowed his mental processes their rightful dominance, but as he turned to seal the boy's soul into dormancy, he once again found reason for pause. His soul had given such an unprecedented surge of protest that, in a moment so rare that he could not help a little shame, Garland considered his soul, and decided to, in part, appease it.

It would have done better to overpower the boy when he did not expect it and therefore could not resist, but Garland found it undesirable to end the boy's consciousness so suddenly and without explanation. Kuja had, after all, been quite cooperative in his studies.

However, the fear that lit the boy's eyes at his explanation pushed the limits of his patience. The sudden, almost _violent_ protest of his soul against higher reason scared him (the first time he could remember fear in millennia) and Garland shut down the boy's consciousness before such dangerous emotions could interfere any further. It was over quickly enough, but even as Garland watched his creation's unconscious form, he could not help unease at the sight.

In his last moments, the boy had, perhaps even unconsciously, asked, "Why?" A slight irritation prickled between Garland's eyes. Had he not taken time specifically to answer such a question? He wondered if the boy had not been listening or (and this was a thought that he silently reprimanded himself for) if he himself had not understood something. After nearly five thousand years since his creation, there was nothing which Garland did not know, and yet, the sight of this boy gave him the persistent thought that he had missed something. He ignored the urge to reawaken the boy for further study in this regard and continued his tasks. It was far better that he rid himself of this distraction than tempt his soul any farther. It would not do to allow any further risks to his better reason.

Kuja's soul now lay dormant. Without interference, it would eventually rewaken, but the boy could not move, think, or even dream. He had fallen into a state of mock death and could not resist or, indeed, feel pain. Garland did not know why this thought occurred to him as he began the extraction process or as he watched the boy's body naturally convulse at the intrusion of electricity and magic that fished through his essence, but it intruded loudly upon his focus and he could not shake it. It took less than ten minutes before his monitors confirmed that the process had completed and a canister filled with the heavily packed mist of a trapped soul. The machine's core opened and K6234 slid out upon the platform. Garland waved his hand and captured the unresponsive body in Psychokinesis, led it to the adjacent door, pinned in the code, and floated the unconscious Genome inside.

Garland led him to the Stasis Room, his collection of unconscious Genomes that might require further study in the future. He had gathered so many over the past five thousand years that they surrounded him upon entry and he could not immediately count them all. They slept in thick glass tanks and floated loosely within the rushing fluid of their embryonic fluids, awaiting the day when Garland would return interest to them, though that day might never come. Garland walked the chronological path from his first creation to his most recent V22 model and paused at one which he had kept empty. With the press of a button, it slid out horizontally and opened in two sheets of plate glass. Garland connected the boy to the various tubes and wires which would hold him in indefinite, unconscious life, carefully lowered him inside, and then pressed the button again. The glass slid closed, the container filled with the same blue-green fluid as the others, and then reentered its proper position so that the boy seemed to almost be standing.

Garland watched him for longer than his reason dictated was necessary. Unlike the other Genomes, this boy looked almost unrecognizably different in stasis. His face was motionless and without all of the exaggerated expression that had so annoyed him as of late, he looked quite unlike himself. Without the exaggerated gestures the boy had grown so fond of, his body seemed limp, weak, and dead. His silver hair – slightly grown out from the usual Genomic style – rushed around his face without restraint and the movement of the stasis fluid ruffled that over-long feather and kept it in constant motion. The sinking feeling returned as Garland considered that feathered malfunction to the boy's design. He found that he could not bring himself to leave.

A series of characters caught his eye along the upper rim of the tank. Upon entry into stasis, the system had sampled the boy's genetic coding, identified it within the database, and labeled it over him in clear, digital letters. "_S32 - K6234."_ Garland paused at the sight of that serial code. After a moment's hesitation, he typed into the over-ride system, managed the lesser functions, and clicked into the relabeling subcategory. The change did not take long – only four letters worth of his time – but as he watched the text change upon its labeling, his soul was once again appeased. Garland left without further cause for hesitation and returned to his studies, thoughts already on his new research and possible alterations to his plans. Occasionally, his mind would return to the boy still floating in stasis in the back rooms of the right wing, but each time, he would think of those letters and their proper identification would put his guilt at ease.

"Kuja."


	5. Chapter 5: Failure

_**Awakening to Dreams**_

**Chapter Five: Failure**

* * *

After that day, Terra fell silent.

Nothing really had changed – in fact, it was much the same as it had been for five millennia – but with that one death, it had lost its only voice. The spawn of the crystal. The embodiment of its core. The tongue of the planet, and it had fallen silent.

The world slipped into its own blue fog, like a semi-solid liquid obscuring the sleep of monotone minds. It floated there – unconscious, unaware – and waited until the time of awakening.

Not that this bothered Garland. The quiet heightened his focus and allowed him further time for his studies. He could remember his many days of barely controlled fury, the way his irritation had interfered with his thought processes and, in many cases, made productive intellectual progress impossible. He had grown so hindered by his frustrations that he had many times considered terminating his research before its logical conclusion and confining the boy to stasis merely to rid himself of the headache. This silence was the conclusion of a hundred and twenty-nine days of untiring patience – an end to the distractions he so despised. He knew no regrets.

Yet, before this temporary malfunction of Terra's usual processes, he had not held a true conversation for over five thousand years. He did not know why this thought occurred to him so suddenly as he passed through the now monotone buildings of Bran Bal, making his usual bimonthly updates on the development of his creations and their various processes. He did not know why it had occurred to him, but once it had, he could not rid himself of it. He scanned their empty, soulless faces, and found that truth, and he did not know its relevancy. The S32 model particularly disturbed him. Kuja had been the discrepancy and yet, he looked at these fully functioning vessels as though they were the deviations. He had grown too used to the boy's presence, he realized as he asked one for its processes and received nothing but the definition he had programmed into its memory reserves. He had invested far more time in the boy than he had ever spent in the presence of his standard models. The thought unnerved him and he left quickly for the familiarity of Pandemonium. In such a crucial stage of Terra's rebirth, he could not afford such vehement distraction.

Yet even he in all of his mental discipline could not halt the chain reaction once that thought swept into motion. In over five thousand years he had not spoken with another truly sentient being. Indeed, he had become so ill-prepared in social matters that he had not known how to handle them when they had arisen. He had not missed it, yet this thought persisted even as he reinitiated his research and took to his notes. Like the trappings of his soul, it would not leave him.

He did not expect the thought to survive so long against his will nor did he expect any foreign, quiet emotions to accompany it, but he found that the longer it persisted, the more it branched, evolved, and grew into the very memories he had isolated long ago. They flashed before his eyes in colors dulled by the passing of time, and he could not fight it. He could not deny it. He could only rub his forehead, cease his data processing, and wait for the end.

He had been young once. This was something he often forgot. He had been young, confused, and, for the most part, alone. His creator (he had forgotten the name) had taught him of his purpose and trained him with this goal in mind. Terra had been in decline then. A dying husk of a planet within Gaia's inner sphere. There had been no life but the monsters which bounded across its cratered surface and hid in the shadowed caves below. Its people already slept deep in the planet's red core, and few remained in corporeal form. He remembered their speech and their arguments in the halls of what had been the structure of Pandemonium, then a true castle rather than the mockery the millennia had made it. These arguments were some of the few conversations he could remember.

"I will not tolerate your reckless endangerment of life! This planet has progressed too far for assimilation! To do so now would be immoral and potentially disastrous! The people of this planet-!"

"Are nothing compared to the might of Terra. Would you so easily choose these inferior beings over our own home? You are a traitor to our people."

Garland had heard them through their closed doors, their voices echoing through the gray halls of Pandemonium. He hid in the shadows, crouched behind an open door where he thought he would not be found and listened. He was not allowed to listen to such things. His creator had said that such talk would corrupt his mind with the lies of the others, but he could not help himself. He hid and he waited and he listened without breathing, hoping he would not be found, knowing the consequences if he was. The first, unfamiliar voice faltered at that accusation. Three footsteps towards the second voice, approaching it.

"_I_ am the traitor? The people of Terra …They never wanted this! There is civilization down there! Primitive, yes, but civilization none the less! We can sleep, but they do not have that choice! You would kill them and strip their souls from their natural cycle?"

A pause. Consideration. "Yes," his creator said simply, and the other made a noise of frustration. More footsteps, this time away.

"A traitor…A traitor I may be, but I would far prefer treason than the monstrous perversions of your mind! You have lost your conscience!"

"No." There was no anger to it, just that simple syllable. The calm, uninvolved tone of one above such petty conflicts. "You have lost your priorities on the surface of that planet. How long do you spend there now? I've nearly concluded that you have abandoned your home for their medieval kind. What have you been doing so far away from your purpose?"

"I…" Another pause. "I have not…"

He heard the soft "hmph" of his creator's smirk, and could imagine him crossing his arms and looking down so coldly while his enemy faltered for words.

"That is irrelevant!" the other finally said, but his declaration was weak. Footsteps, this time from his creator towards the other. Slow, purposeful footsteps that denoted power and ill intention.

"And yet you have abandoned us for it. For this…irrelevancy. How long will you be able to uphold your double standard, I wonder? You suggest that we do nothing to hurry this planet's life and stimulate assimilation, but you would have our people sleep until the ends of the universe to save what? A few stone settlements and a people who know nothing of the nature of souls or life or power? Oh, but of course…" A soft, heartless laugh kept in the back of the throat, mocking and cold. "When do you plan to tell her what you are? Or will you deny it until her mortal grave?"

"That is enough!" The laughter ended. Those three words echoed through the halls, each time quieter than the last until silence overcame it. His creator did not speak again.

"My actions aside, you will not assimilate this planet. While I live, I will not allow you to take a single soul for your schemes, and that is final. We have nothing more to discuss." He heard the other push past his creator and storm into the hallway. Garland sunk back farther into the shadows and held his breath until the footsteps had faded. Behind him, his creator remained where the other had left him, and he could hear the smirk on his face again.

"Hmph…" he scoffed, "Indeed."

The door unlocked and opened in a series of mechanical taps and hums. The dreaded clicks of metal, coming closer. They moved past him and Garland saw a flash of darkness and a floor-length cloth like a cape and then nothing. He let out a breath and peaked forward.

He didn't see his creator coming nor did he see his blackened face once it appeared around the door. He only felt the pull of his soul, the intrusion on his mind, and his body moving against his will. He tried to apologize, but nothing would leave his now stiffened jaw and he was moving towards the very thing he feared and he fell to his knees and that hand reached out and…

"Have you defied me?"

_Enough._

Garland forced the memory aside and refused to think on it any longer.

* * *

Further research proved what he most dreaded.

The boy's soul had, in fact, spawned from the revived crystal, and it was by no means a special case. The soul held great power from both planets, and was, therefore, incredibly powerful and unique in its construction. Nothing about it told of a single malfunction, but of an upcoming trend. The Crystal had revived and had begun the evolution of at least a second soul. As it gained more power, its production would only increase and its creations would latch onto the only compatible bodies on the planet – his Genomes. Of course, he could always remove the souls again, but who was to say that if the cycle became oversaturated with new souls that they would not simply enter his vessels again the moment they had emptied? Vessels were far more difficult to keep soulless on Gaia's surface for this very reason. If Terra became as such, then by the time his purpose was at its end and the time of Assimilation came near then there might not be a single empty vessel left for inhabitation of Terra's ancient race.

Garland could not allow this to come to pass. To have come so near to his goals only to fail in the last few centuries…

Failure. Just as he had been promised.

* * *

"Assimilation may only occur once one planet's crystal is capable of completely enveloping the other. The superior planet will thus overpower the inferior and absorb the second's cycle. The old world will be rejuvenated with the youth of the weaker-…Are you paying attention?"

Garland blinked and looked away from the window. His creator was unlike anyone he ever had or would see again. As an immortal guardian of the planet's core, time had taken its toll on his face until it was blank of feature, mottled, and nearly black. His eyes had glazed white with age, but his soul was fine-tuned enough that he did not need vision in the physical sense. Garland felt a familiar wave of psychic energy sweep over his soul, probing for distraction, and he shook his head.

"An older world can be rejuvenated with the youth of a weaker planet, extending and reviving its life with the future lives of the inferior," Garland recited perfectly, "That is how the Terran civilization has survived to such power in the past and how it will be revived again."

"Hm…" His creator considered him, and extended his awareness across him again. Seemingly satisfied, he turned with a wave of his massive cloak (so long that Garland had never once seen the body inside of it) and began again. "At the time of Assimilation the crystal's energy must be magically manipulated into the proximity of Gaia's core and will absorb its energy once the Terran cycle has successfully defeated that of Gaia. However, the Gaian cycle must first be weakened by radical fluctuations in power, in other words-…"

Garland looked out the window again. Barren landscape stretched out before him from his fourth floor vantage point, and he saw each of its craters, each of its mountains and lifeless plains. He looked up to the sky and saw nothing but black and tiny pinpoints of light. Terra had not yet been absorbed into Gaia's dimensional sphere and was not yet overcome by the crystal's light. He saw Gaia too sometimes, if he was lucky. That planet was painted green and blue – plant life and water. He had never seen it, but he had been told it would return at the time of Assimilation. He longed for that day.

Light refracted upon contact with the window and its weaker rays reflected back at him. His face had not yet been torn down by time and the effects of immortality. He had, in every sense, been young. He was almost unrecognizable from the guardian he would become except for his white hair, then cut short around his ears, and the mechanical body he had been given – a weak prototype to the Genomes he would later develop. His energy core cast his face forever in red. The last vestiges of energy from Terra's core – his soul.

"Perhaps I should not waste my time with one who so desires failure?"

His creator was watching him again with those sightless eyes. Garland blinked back impassively. "I do not desire failure," he corrected, but his creator barely allowed him even that contradiction before he interrupted with another, "You are not listening to me."

This time Garland remained silent. He could not recall where his creator had left off, and he cursed himself for it. His creator paused then took a step towards the window.

"The day will come when you must take over my mission," he said, "The others are against me." That smirk came over his creator's worn expression again, and Garland heard it with that soft "hmph" before he continued. "It is only a matter of time before we clash, and when that time comes, I do not believe a single Guardian shall remain alive and conscious. When that time comes, you must Assimilate the planet lest we be lost forever in its core. Do you understand?"

Garland slowly nodded and then, because his creator could not see him, answered, "Yes."

His creator turned his head so that his whitened eyes stared directly into Garland's. "That is your purpose," he reiterated, "The purpose of your existence. You must not stray from it or your life shall become meaningless. If you should lose focus for even a moment, it could mean failure in that purpose and, subsequently, in your life. I will entrust this power to you, Garland. You must not allow our civilization to die."

How long had it been since he had thought back on those words? Perhaps he should not have forgotten. If he had not lost attention, perhaps he would not have forgotten the most important part…

* * *

He discovered the S32 model to be a far better conductor to magic, and therefore, souls than the V22. After repeated testing, he found the V22 to actively resist the inhabitation of the crystal's energy while the S32 accepted it freely. This did little to reassure him. The V22 were resistant, not immune, and even they would fall prey to the cycle should it become oversaturated with the appropriate energy. He did not have much time…

But the time he did have could be extended by removing vulnerability from the equation.

Thus, after a further two weeks of study, he gathered his sample (Kuja, as a defect, could not count among his archives) and programmed the others to receive poison rather than their usual infusion of nutrients in the Reproduction Laboratory of Bran Bal. The poison would work quickly to degenerate their systems and disintegrate the nuclei of their cells, ultimately concluding in complete, simultaneous failure of their bodily functions. He waited until the end of the hour for the chemicals to take effect and then left for Bran Bal to rid it of the uninhabitable vessels. Upon arrival, he found them collapsed in the various placements of their wandering, halted during their mental stimulation. The V22s did not seem to notice the change and stood beside them or walked around them to avoid tripping. Garland ordered these survivors to clean the waste and left before he could think on the matter any longer. His soul stirred at the sight of their pale, thin bodies and their silver hair thrown about unmoving faces. He had never had such trouble in the termination of Genomes before, but the sight unnerved him, and he left for the shadows of Pandemonium. But the thought did not remain in Bran Bal where it belonged. He could not rid himself of it.

_Death_. He had never before thought of the degeneration of Genomes as death. They were, after all, soulless shells incapable of feeling, thought, or true awareness. They were nothing more than tools for his purposes, and yet, that word came to him now with the rise of silver in his mind's eye. _Death_. _The parting from a physical realm. The abandonment of those left alone._

* * *

He'd felt his creator's death like an electric shock through his soul.

_The time has come. The last of the Terrans now sleeps. You know what you must do._

Despite his creator's warnings, he had not expected this time to come. Who, after all, could possibly kill his creator? He had lived since the beginning of Gaia and had outlived every Guardian but one. He had said that the others would turn against him, but who was left to fight him? Only one older than he and of far lesser strength. Yet this inferior Guardian had gathered the forces of Gaia, and they had struck his creator down. They had thought themselves victorious, and they had been rewarded with time.

But his creator's plans had not died with him. Garland was his secret weapon. The last of the Terrans slept with the assurance of Gaia's safety, but he did not know of Garland or his purpose. He did not know that the moment his creator met his death that Garland had been alerted and began preparing for the long, arduous process of Assimilation.

Garland wished to begin immediately, but upon entering the teleporter to the planet's core, he found that the path had been altered and disassembled. It took him many years to recreate the correct magical stream to the planet's core and redirect the crystal upon Gaia. When these preparations were finally complete, he set about the Assimilation as he had been instructed, but Terra's silence had worn upon his memory. When he teleported the Terran crystal into the sphere of Gaia's cycle, he had already forgotten his creator's warning and the relative life of Gaia compared to his dead planet. Then again, Garland was not entirely to blame for this tragic mistake. His creator had not told him that his plans to weaken Gaia had failed nor had he properly explained the manner in which Garland could weaken the planet himself. His creator had been so certain in the accuracy of his plans that it had not crossed his mind that failure could even be possible.

So when Garland completed the Assimilation, it came as a surprise when Gaia's cycle violently rebelled against the foreign intruder and lashed out at the crystal absorbing its power. The planet lurched. Terra's cycle scorched Gaia's surface in red and pure magic obliterated its life. Terra's surface began to quake, crack, and then divide. Light seared blue and blocked out the black forever. It was not until nearly three thousand years later that Garland would open a teleporter between the two worlds at the Shimmering Isle. Until then he would not know the true extent of the damage – only that much of the ground had given way, the monsters had been killed, and the sky had forever filled with that blue light.

For the next five thousand years, he had been alone.

* * *

He would attempt Assimilation again.

This, he decided, was the only solution to his predicament. If he could reawaken the Terran souls before the cycle saturated with the crystal's energy then he would succeed. But in order for assimilation to take place, the cycle would have to be strong enough to withstand Gaia's defenses. He had learned his lesson and it had cost him five millennia of isolation. He would not risk such a thing again.

And so the problem became "how to hurry the time of assimilation?" The answer was, as his creator had so vehemently stated, to create an abnormal flux in the Gaian cycle. In other words – death. But how to cause such mass destruction in such a short amount of time? His creator had disrupted the cycle using ancient technology and the manipulation of pawns, but Garland's only surviving weapon was the Invincible and he had no pawns…

Garland frowned and glanced at the swirling mass of fog in its canister. How long had it sat there, unnoticed on his desk after he had finished his dissection? Had he not noted its power? Its high conductibility of magic? It held the power of both Terra and Gaia, making it equally useful on both planets and unique in its design. It would surely be capable of every magic: black and white alike, and the boy's body still floated uselessly in stasis, waiting…

Garland wasted no time. He had none to squander.

This time, he would not fail.


	6. Chapter 6: Purpose

Note: If you're wondering why my word count is suddenly about 9000 words shorter and why I reposted this, I realized that I needed to rewrite these last three chapters and maybe take them in a new direction. The first few paragraphs of this one are the same, but then it's completely different. I was having a pretty big self-esteem crisis which culminated in my rereading of these. Honestly, I have to thank everyone who didn't denounce me right then and there. It was pretty awful, at least in my low self-esteemed mind. Anyway, I've redone this with a new direction and tone and I hope it's better! I have no idea how often I'll be posting since the college term is starting tomorrow, though I don't know if that matters to anyone. xD

...On an unrelated note, I cosplayed for the first time today! I make a pretty good Princess Garnet, I must say.

* * *

_**Awakening to Dreams:**_

**Chapter Six: Purpose**

* * *

His hair had grown. That was the first thing Kuja noticed when he returned to Bran Bal and looked into the water. His hair reached halfway down his neck. He touched the ends and felt the fine, silver strands that now far surpassed the downy feathers and he stared. It took time for hair to grow like that, time that he didn't remember. He wanted to touch the water and make it shatter. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't.

Garland had done something horrible to him. He understood that now, staring at the water, wondering how much time had passed, disturbed that he didn't know. He remembered the pressure on his soul, the pain, and Garland's eyes, watching him, waiting for him to fall. Garland had gone on and on about purpose and how Kuja would prove himself over the others, but he hadn't really heard it. He'd curled on the table with his knees pulled to his chest and his forehead pressed against his legs. His hair had plastered against his skin and trickled moisture down his neck and cheeks. He'd asked why his hair was wet and Garland had answered as though asked something as mundane as the spiritual processes of the crystal.

"I revived you from stasis."

"Stasis…?" The explanation had made little sense. Stasis brought to mind images of developing Genomes, half-formed and waiting for maturity. Yet Garland had applied it to him. Kuja had frowned and nearly asked for clarification when he'd run his fingers through the wetness of his hair and noticed how long the ends had grown. He had not really understood what had happened until that moment when he felt his hair, and then he'd understood everything. Time had passed. He had changed.

_How long was I unconscious?_

That question haunted him as he was led from the lower levels. Time unconscious meant time without him. Even if he wasn't alive, time would continue, that light would shine, and Garland would continue his work as though he'd never...

_Like I'd never existed._

For a short while, he hadn't.

Garland didn't take him back to Bran Bal - not immediately. He led him down a hall, to a teleporter, down another of Pandemonium's many rocky overpasses, and farther than Kuja could ever remember going before. Pandemonium was so old, broken, and disjointed that one could only travel through parts of it by magical means. Pandemonium was old, over ten thousand years old and had served as the base of the guardians before even Garland. Many of its paths, corridors, and wings had fallen with the dimensional catastrophe, though he didn't know exactly what that meant. Still, he kept his mind on it as he traveled these unfamiliar paths with only the occasional nagging from his previous thoughts. There wasn't anything to think about, really. It was over. Done with. He was alive, his soul was intact, and he wasn't an empty vessel anymore...

The blue light was so still from here - painful, but calming. He could see it from this part of the old castle, high in the upper levels over Terra and Bran Bal. Leaning over the path, he could identify the little basin of his village by the light's reflection on the water. The platforms, like columns sticking out of Terra's endless chasms, looked close enough from here that he could almost jump. He wondered what it would be like to fall. He'd seen Genomes fall before, down the rocky cliffs and cracking their heads on the stone below. They'd all been dead, of course, but he thought a fall like that could kill someone. He'd been dead, or his soul had. Garland had led him down to the lower levels, turned on him, and...

Garland brought him to a room which his mind identified as a library. _Database for physically and digitally recorded knowledge. _There was a hole in the opposite wall, but the ceiling was intact. It cast the room in shadow, but left it tinted blue from Gaia's light and red from the slips of Pandemonium's energy lines pulsing along the floor. Lining both sides of the room stood computer terminals and the activation switches for holographic images and recordings, half hidden by rows of long, two-story shelves that towered up above them. They were filled with something, lines and lines of cubes with drawings down the sides. Kuja identified them as books.

Garland flickered beside him then disappeared from his sight. Kuja blinked and looked around to find him floating a story above, eyeing the books with a clawed finger and then drawing one from its shelf. He flickered again,reappeared beside him, and pushed the book into Kuja's hand.

"Read this," he said before Kuja could ask, "Learn its contents and return to me once you can demonstrate its techniques."

Kuja looked down and turned it over in his hands. Its weight exceeded his expectations and the cover was rough against his skin.

"What is it?"

"A book to instruct you on the ways of magic," Garland answered tonelessly, "If you have no questions then I will return you to Bran Bal."

Kuja opened his mouth to object, but Garland just walked past him, the flutter of his cape almost blocking him from view as it fluttered past Kuja's eyes. Kuja frowned. He had plenty of questions, more than he knew what to do with, but Garland was already gone, and something stopped him from calling after him. Kuja hesitated and then hurried to catch up to his master. The book ached a little in his arms, but he held it tightly so he wouldn't drop it and anger Garland further. He knew too well what could happen if Garland was angry...

They came to the final teleporter, the one at the entrance, and he was bidden leave. Kuja stepped through, felt his molecules rearrange, and reappeared on the bridge to Bran Bal. He moved down the steps, saw the Genomes there, and walked past them down the path as though nothing had changed.

But his hair had grown. He caught a glimpse of it as he passed the water, and he stopped and turned to stare. His hair was nearly two inches longer, wavy and unkempt from neglect. It was still a little wet in the ends, the remnants of artificial embryonic fluid. He shivered and turned away.

He didn't want to look anymore.

* * *

It didn't take long for him to realize that the Genomes were missing, or at least that some of them were. He hadn't noticed it at first, as preoccupied as he'd been, but when they came to his room that day, he couldn't exactly ignore the difference in their demographics. What had once been an almost equal split in number had suddenly homogenized into a sea of shorter gold. Kuja frowned and counted more of them than he remembered. Not wanting to jump to any conclusions, he called one over and asked it about the situation.

"Where did the S32's go?" he asked one of them as it approached his bed.

"Master Garland has deemed the S32 model obsolete," it answered, its monotone unwavering.

"But...Why?"

"That model showed weaknesses to the spiritual fluctuations of the cycle. It proved vulnerable to invasion from stray souls spawned by the crystal."

Replacement. Kuja tried not to think too deeply into the implications of this information, but found that impossible. The thoughts spawned of their own accord and would multiply if he allowed them even an instant of weakness. Garland had terminated the entire model because of him. Because he was aware. His soul was a defect, a liability. One that he had rid himself of. Kuja's life could be ended at any time.

The thoughts would circle in his brain and cause him to toss and turn, curling into himself as though pained. This happened every time he allowed himself even a moment of relaxation and came worse when he tried to sleep. He'd lay awake in restless misery, unable to sleep even if he'd wanted to. Day faded into day, and slowly, he began to deteriorate.

Dark rings had formed under his eyes. His hair grew dirty; his feather wilted. He grew sticky and worn, but what did it matter, really? It was not as though he had anyone to impress or anywhere to be. Garland no longer called him, and he hated the Genomes. Why should it matter how he looked or what he did? He did as he pleased, which mostly consisted of semiconscious confinement to his room.

Even when the Genomes gathered around him in their uniform rows, he wouldn't leave. He'd glare at them, sure, and even throw the odd projectile in their direction to try and shoo them from his bed, but he didn't care to move. Movement stimulated thoughts which did not need stimulation. He'd get physically ill from it sometimes, an unpleasant combination of nausea, headaches, disorientation. He checked his systems for malfunction, but his subconscious told him that his body was operating perfectly. With no other answers, Kuja concluded that stasis must have broken him somehow. He was no longer the same Genome that had left with Garland on that day when he'd fallen. Garland had done something to him, something awful. He told himself that it was nothing, that he needed to gain control of his emotions, but these objections accomplished nothing. It was during these times when he could not cease his sickened worry that he would reach for his book.

He hadn't known what he was supposed to do with it, exactly, but he'd opened it upon his return to Bran Bal, and found that there were words inside. He didn't know _how_ it had happened, but he'd look at the symbols that littered its pages, and their words would flash in his mind, like a voice but silent. He could read it again and again and it would always say the same things to him, sentences usually about magic and the soul. He didn't really understand what it said, but the words drowned out his thoughts and helped numb his sickness. He read often, alone in silence and was generally left unbothered. For the first time, he did not mind such a long period of isolation. He preferred it, actually, when the alternative was Garland. Just the thought of him sent a strange kind of chill through his body and doubled the effects of his anxiety. He wouldn't have minded if he never saw the man again...

Which is why he ignored his call when it came. It was the same as always, but he could almost hear something bitter in it, something dark and serious. He watched the book, unmoving, until the call came again, this time with the painful twinge of his soul's oppression. Kuja winced and marked his page. For all his resistance, it didn't seem that he had a choice...

Still, it could have been worse. Pandemonium's upper levels were so much more tolerable than the lower. Sure, they were still covered in strange material, strange designs, paths that broke off halfway or could only be passed by magic, but there was light, at least. The painful, omnipresent blue light of Gaia. Kuja looked outside a window and watched a dragon circle in the distance. It would disappear sometimes behind those platforms that seemed to be everywhere beyond his village, but it would always come back, weaving between them as though through an obstacle course. He couldn't see them from his view in Bran Bal, only here in Pandemonium when he could see all of Terra for miles. It dropped a little in altitude, its tail swishing in anticipation.

"It has been nearly a week since I released you to Bran Bal. What have you learned of the magical arts?"

"Nothing, really."

The dragon flew in tight circles, its head ducked to the ground. He could imagine its sharpened cry, the one he'd heard when it had rampaged Bran Bal and torn so many Genomes to frayed bits of meat. He wondered what it was looking for now.

"Nothing?"

"That's what I said."

The dragon dove, its wings tilted, its talons angled to kill. A splash of red. A thick smell like rust.

His soul tightened. Kuja broke away from the window with a grimace and stumbled back a step. His knees weakened, his vision overcome with starbursts of black.

"H-Hey!"

"Are my questions _boring_ you, Kuja?"

"That's not what I-!"

"Do you not believe my orders worth your attention?"

"Master Garland, I..."

"Enough!"

Garland gave a short gesture of his hand, and Kuja winced. He knew that sign well enough to know that it didn't mean anything good. He'd expected a psychokinesis or a burst of thunder, but received neither.

"Wha? ...Ah!"

His voice wouldn't come. He gasped, but it was soundless, just an intake of air. Garland watched him coldly, so sickeningly satisfied, while Kuja felt at his throat.

"I asked you to complete a task for me, and you failed at my request. Are you proud of your failure?" Kuja tried to answer, but couldn't manage it. He tried to communicate this through hand gestures.

"Just nod or shake your head, Kuja!"

Kuja had to take a moment to remember the question and then shook his head. He wasn't proud. He just didn't particularly care.

"Yet you admit to the matter as though it means nothing?"

It was probably best that he couldn't speak. Part of Kuja wanted to agree.

Garland turned towards the window, arms crossed, cape rustling with his movement. Kuja glanced out too, but the dragon was gone and Garland took up most of the window. He chose to watch the ceiling instead.

"I gave you life," Garland started.

_'Obviously.'_

"I could have left you in stasis, Kuja. Your soul is more useful in my possession than it is in yours."

_'What do you know about my soul?'_

"But I require a servant, someone to work in my name and satisfy my will. Gaia must be weakened for Terra's rebirth, and your soul is equally attuned to both planets. If you are properly trained, I believe you capable of Gaia's destruction."

_'...'_

"That is the purpose of your life. If you do not fulfill that purpose, I will not hesitate to reclaim what is mine."

The ceiling was more complete here than in other parts of Pandemonium. It was still made of the same incoherent mixture of stone, metal, and shell as the others, but it covered the whole room instead of breaking to the next floor or opening into a long chasm of undefined space. It was a nice ceiling.

"Kuja?"

He wondered what Pandemonium was made of. He'd probably find it in a book somewhere if he looked hard enough. It had to have come from somewhere, but how was it built? Why? The Ancient Terrans were so confusing...

"Kuja!"

Garland's eyes were a little scary when he glanced at them. He looked away again and gestured speaking motions to show that he couldn't have answered if he'd wanted to. Garland's jaw tightened.

"Just nod or shake your head."

He nodded.

"Then you understand why learning magic is of such high importance. To not go to the most effective of extremes to achieve such a goal would be foolish and dangerous to your life. If you have not succeeded on your own then every measure must be taken..." There was something off in Garland's voice, something that made Kuja want to back away. He did stumble back a little, but Garland grabbed his arm and pulled him forward again. Kuja breathed a gasp of surprise.

"Cease your struggling. Or do you not wish for consciousness?"

Garland dragged him back into the corridor, down the hall, through a teleporter, and into the lower levels. The light disappeared. The ceilings completed and the walls strengthened with metal as they started underground. Kuja backpedaled a little, but his resistance just slid Garland's finger down his arm, cutting it on a nail. _'I don't want to go back!' _he thought desperately, _'Please, Garland! I promise I'll...' _

A door opened and he was pulled inside, not to the green-blue of stasis, but to the darkness of a room he couldn't identify. He saw a wall-length machine, an attached chair, and...

Garland forced him down and held him there with straps like the ones in the soul scanner that bit into his wrists. Kuja fought now, _really _fought, but he was bound too tightly; he couldn't move. Garland left him for the machine and typed something into the interface.

Pain jolted through his arms and into his chest, singing where it touched and fading to an uncomfortable pressure somewhere behind his lungs. It started weak, this pulse of pain and heat, but slowly it strengthened, wave by wave as that pressure expanded and struggled against the constraints of his body. It pulsed again and he felt the lurch of his soul, not being pulled but _pushing_ against him. Breaking free. It burned at his skin, as though leaking through the pores.

Something broke inside him, like a snap of some thin membrane. His soul burst and he gasped with an eruption of heat and light. An orange light, bright against his eyes, burning him. He opened his eyes. That light was everywhere, springing from his hands and up his arms. _Fire_. He was covered in flame.

The machine stalled. Garland stood and watched as Kuja stared, dumbstruck at his body. He could feel the heat, but it didn't hurt him. Garland raised his hand and muttered a word. The flames went out in a second of cool air.

"You have experienced the feel of magic, stemming from the stimulation of the soul. It is difficult to invoke without training, but you will learn to control it and bend it to your will. The process should come easier now."

Kuja didn't think to argue, though he couldn't have if he'd tried. Garland pulled him to his feet and led him away, back through Pandemonium's shadows and into the light of Bran Bal. Even when Garland lifted his spell, he was silent except to confirm that his voice was once again functional. He left Garland and sat down on his bed.

His hands were shaking.


End file.
